Confession: I don't like sweet potatoes. Yes, I know they're good for you. Yes, I know you can make fries. NO, I don't like them with cinnamon and sugar. But I DO like them in a muffin or sweet bread. That being said, the original Pin here was for sweet potato cornbread muffins, but I couldn't find canned sweet potatoes. SO. All that to say, did you know you can always substitute canned pumpkin for canned sweet potatoes in a baking recipe?? (And vice versa!)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose flour (I used a gluten free all purpose that is a 1 for 1 substitution)

1 cup yellow cornmeal

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1⁄2 cup sugar

3 sweet potatoes or 1 (16 ounce) can sweet potatoes (I used a 15oz can of pumpkin)

2 eggs

6 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons oil

Preheat your oven to 425. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray. (I used coconut oil cooking spray.) You could do it in a cast iron skillet or square pan, too, just adjust the cooking time.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.Mix all the wet ingredients together in a smaller bowl.Combine and mix until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated.

Spoon into your muffin tins to about 2/3 full. The original recipe says it makes 18. With my larger muffin tins, I made 14. You could use mini tins, smaller ones... Anything is fine, just adjust your cooking time.

The recipe says to cook the 18 muffins for 15-20 minutes. The ones in the metal, slightly larger tin, took about 17 minutes; the ones in the stoneware took more like 22.

RATING: 2 stars (hubby says a 1)Like Ryan's Ground Meat and Potatoes recently, I should have paid attention to the one 1* review. Poor FayeMay859, ignored until we need her.... OKAY, so. I didn't use sweet potatoes. I am assured by all the other 5* reviews that these are flavorful with sweet potatoes (although some use pumpkin, so I remain skeptical). Otherwise, I made it exactly as the recipe says. They rose, which was good because the batter is quite heavy and I wasn't sure. They're nice to look at. I had one hot, which is when you're supposed to eat corn bread. The outside cooked nicely with a bit of crust, but the inside is a bit dense. Not uncooked, just a bit dense. But mostly.... no flavor. NO. FLAVOR. I did wonder at the 1 tsp of salt, so increasing that would help. I like my cornbread sweet, and this has sugar, but there's not much sweet flavor to this, so if you like yours sweet, increase the sugar or use a more-sugary substitute like agave. A lot of people who reviewed it put corn in, and a sweet canned corn (or fresh) would be good probably. Or you could definitely go the muffiny route and use pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon. For the love of Pete, just use SOMETHING to amp up the flavor. Because if it actually had FLAVOR, it would be at least 3 stars and maybe 4. I ate mine with an alarming amount of fresh farm butter...... and it was still just ok. My husband said he didn't even want to waste butter on one. And honestly, we just threw them away...

NOTE: I added 1/2 tsp of vanilla and 2 tbsp of sugar because I like sweet cornbread

I made this from a Rhee Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) recipe. I did modify it a bit because... basically I was too lazy to go to the store. (When you live 10 miles from the store and don't need anything but butter, it's hard to really get motivated!)

Mix the corn meal, flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.

In another bowl, combine the milk, buttermilk, egg and baking soda. Whisk to combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk to combine.

Add the butter olive oil and vanilla, and stir to combine. Butter olive oil (available at specialty olive oil stores) is great, and you use half the amount of another fat. If you are using shortening like the original recipe, or butter, melt it, and then add it at this point.

I realize this is called "skillet cornbread" and to do it that way, pour into a cast iron skillet and smooth with a spatula. Because there are just 2 of us, and baked goods made with gluten free flour don't hold up well after about 36 hours, I did mine in muffin tins to I could freeze them.

For cooking in a skillet, cook 20-25 minutes until golden on top. The muffins cooked 15-20 (I had 2 different sized ones).

It made 14 large muffins.

I made a cinnamon honey butter to spread on by combining 1/4 cup room temperature salted butter with about 1/8 cup creamed cinnamon honey butter from a local bee keeper. (You could use regular honey and some cinnamon, but watch the consistency - the "creaming" of the honey makes it thick (there's no cream, it's basically whipped), so the honey butter was still spreadable.)

RP Servings: 6-7

RATING: 4.5 stars with the added sweetnessI'm not a huge cornbread fan, but I like it. This is a versatile recipe - you can add the sugar or not, mix in some creamed or pureed canned corn, add jalapenos... And cooking it in a cast iron skillet (which I will do when we've got more people around to eat it) would give it a wonderful crunch. As with most Rhee Drummond recipes, it's delish!

Author

Jennings & Ryan are mother/daughter, and love to cook. And look at Pinterest. So we thought...Why not? At least one Pinterest recipe, with photos and a review, every day for a year. What could go wrong?